Reports. History Establishment George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition formed after the 2010 general election, announced the body in his first official speech. He criticised the economic and fiscal forecasts of the previous Labour government, and announced that the OBR would be responsible for publishing these independently of government in future. The objective underpinning its creation was to provide an independent assessment of national public finances before the coalition Government's emergency budget in June 2010, which outlined the size and pace of the fiscal consolidation plan inherited from the outgoing administration. The role of the Office is to advise whether the declared policy of the Government is likely to meet its targets The OBR was initially chaired by Sir Alan Budd who, along with Geoffrey Dicks and Graham Parker, formed the Budget Responsibility Committee. Budd had been a founding member of the MPC; Dicks was chief economist at Novus Capital and former chief economist of the Royal Bank of Scotland; and Parker headed up the Treasury’s public sector finances team. The remainder of the initial team comprised eight staff seconded from the Treasury. The initial team provided recommendations to the Chancellor on the role of the permanent OBR. The OBR produced its first forecast for public finances shortly before the June 2010 budget with the second at the June budget incorporating the impact of newly announced measures. Colin Talbot, Chair of Public Policy and Management at Manchester Business School and Treasury adviser on public spending, questioned the credibility of the new organisation. He said that the body could not be set up in time to judge the forecasts in the June 2010 United Kingdom Budget. In his opinion, the OBR would not be sufficiently independent of politicians or the Executive to remove the politics from economic decision-making. The office made adjustments to its forecasts in the week before the June 2010 budget. These were thought to be politically favourable to the coalition government and so cast doubt on its independence. In July 2010 it was announced that Budd would not continue in the role after his initial 3-month contract expired. The Financial Times reported "His departure was expected and Sir Alan had let it be known privately that he had never intended to serve as chairman of the OBR for anything other than a short period. His contract spanned the emergency Budget, leaving enough